[SE] under the same sky

we live in a world someone else imagined

Right behind him? Uh, Ronin doesn't think so. Not even a little. And whilst he can keep this up indefinitely, almost - the running, the dodging, the plunging deeper and deeper into the woods - he isn't able to move as smoothly as the creature pursuing him. I can't see you, he says, his mental voice tight and uncertain. Only when he clears another fallen tree and breaks out into a glade does he finally wrestle the luxere instincts under control.

Shifting back and skidding in the fallen leaves, still crowned by glowing antlers, Ronin straightens up and conjures three pinpoints of starlight around him. "Whatever you are, I'm not about to let you haunt the fuck out of these woods. There's enough here without you spooking around," he says with a growl.

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

Well it is not as if I've gone invisible. I don't think anyway. I'm moving too fast for that. Remi replies, a touch dryly, still assuming this is all part of Ronin's continued trick.

Gliding near to Ronin, his feet not touching the ground, the alchemist reaches out a hand for one of his husband's. "Are you seeing things?" He wonders, and strangely his voice sounded muted, like he's speaking underwater or that his ears are filled with cotton. "Have your antlers always been so bright?" He wonders idly, reaching out a hand to grasp one of the tines. Only then does Remi notice the ghostly quality of his skin, how he's more bone than man, and how the shirt he'd been wearing earlier has been replaced with grey rags.

Exhaling sharply, Remi takes a sudden step back—an actual step, which has him falling a foot or so from where he'd been hovering—as his body wavers back into itself again. Swallowing hard and looking at his hand in the light of Ronin's antlers, human now that it is, he raises surprised eyes toward the Huntsman. "Did...did I...can you see me?" Remi wonders, uncertain if this is the next M Night Shamalan twist in their lives: tHe AlCheMiSt HaS BeEn DeAd THiS wHOlE tiMe.

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

we live in a world someone else imagined

It sounds like Remi but it isn't, and the Huntsman is left teetering on the edge of wanting to attack but also not wanting to make a mistake and potentially harm his husband... wherever he is. Even so, the starbolts flare in the darkness as the thing continues to approach, only for them to die out completely when a skeletal hand passes straight through one of his antlers.

Ronin feels as though all energy has been wiped from his body, for a flash of a second; his limbs are heavy, and even his eyelids don't want to stay open. He staggers, ironically at the same time as his husband quite literally falls back into view. Blinking hard, he frowns down at Remi. "Of course I can," he rasps. "Where did you go...?"

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

"I...I was here the whole time. Right behind you. You ran through the trees?" Remi pauses before saying, and I ran with you, because he realizes that he didn't. He was there, he was following, but...no, he hadn't been running. He'd been...

Glancing down at himself, Remi pats his chest, stomach, and thighs as if expecting at some point to find a bit of himself out of place. He isn't though, and that just confuses him all the more. "Could you not see me? When we were running? Here in the clearing?" Brows parted only by the deep grooves between them, Remi gives his husband a curious look. "I...wanted to snuff out your light. When I reached for your antler.." Squinting, as if looking at something in the distance, Remi's frown deepens. "I don't know why I did that."

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

we live in a world someone else imagined

"You were not behind me. Something was, but... I..." Ronin falls silent as Remi continues to explain, and he feels those phantom fingers through his antlers again as if they're drawing the lifeblood from him. Shuddering, he furrows his brow and moves to crouch down before his husband. He's coated in a cold sweat, something relatively uncommon for the Huntsman, and he reaches out a hand to Remi so he might draw him into a hug.

"Are you saying that the spooky skeleton in a rag was you? Because I don't really know how to feel about that." He smiles softly, not that it reaches his eyes. "Are you... have you had any new shifts lately? New abilities or something...?"

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

It's rare to see Ronin like this. He's shivered and shuddered at some of Remi's shifts before (notably ones that have involved tentacles and far too many limbs), but this was a different sort of reaction altogether.

Reaching for Ronin's hand, but not before double-checking that his fingers were still flesh and bone, Remi sinks down onto his knees. The world feels cold and far away, in no small part because of the words his husband says, though the alchemist clutches him all the tighter for it. "Not that I was aware of, but..." He mumbles, pulling back.

Releasing the Huntsman and leaning back to put intentional distance between them, Remi offers his husband a watery smile as his eyes lower somewhat. Exhaling, he reaches inside of himself to what almost feels like a cave—or a pit, sometimes—where the things he is and can be lurk along shadowy rocks. Closing his eyes, Remi extends a mental hand towards a new presence; the shift slips over him like a mist, coating him in ashen rags and dissolving away his bones and his mortality.

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

we live in a world someone else imagined

Ronin's arms slip around his husband as if he might be able to squeeze whatever darkness is within him and disintegrate it, or drag it into himself somehow. He hasn't realised he's been holding his breath until Remi draws back, the Huntsman tilting his head and reluctantly allowing his hands to drift away, folding into his lap. He smiles back at the other man but it's just as watery, and as Remi looks within himself and the creature comes forth again, he can't stop the shudder that runs through him.

"It is a shift," he mumbles, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. "I have never seen anything like that, though... It isn't an animal that I have ever seen, put it that way..." Unable to help it, Ronin shifts back a few feet, resisting the urge to get to his feet. "Can you... is it like the lion, or...?" Can you control it?

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

"Is it?" Remi wonders, and again his voice feels very far away. "I feel..." His brows furrow, not that Ronin will be able to see them, shadowed as his face has become. The hood tilts to the side as the Huntsman shifts back, seeming unoffended and empty of emotion in a way that seems very, very unlike Remi.

"No, not like the lion. I still feel like me." Except I don't. Holding up a hand, the ashen robes fall back to reveal bones covered by a weak layer of ghostly mist. "But I feel like...more like when I leave my body, as a spirit. Detached." Glancing up, the green of his eyes just a sparse whisper of colour amidst the black, Remi shakes his head—or he thinks he does anyway. In reality, he's sitting unnaturally still.

"What am I, do you think?" He asks, sounding a touch whimsical which makes the strangeness of the moment all the more apparent.

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

we live in a world someone else imagined

Ronin swallows hard, taking a sharp breath in and letting it out again as he attempts to control himself. He doesn't know what it is about his husband in his moment that makes his heart pound and his ears ring, but he doesn't like it. And the whimsy in his tone compared to the unnerving stillness only has the Huntsman shifting back further, trying to unconsciously put some distance between himself and Remi.

"Huh," he says, the light from his antlers flickering somewhat. "I don't know, really. I'm sure I'll be able to sketch it since it'll be painted behind my eyes forever, and maybe we can ask Vai if she recognises it? Either way could you... maybe turn back into yourself, please?"

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

"You sound scared, Ronin." Remi murmurs, and though it's what he has observed and is thinking, something about the way his voice sounds—the almost playful but bored tone of it—reminds him of Ludo.

For all the things he does feel in this shift, the desire to torment isn't strictly speaking one of them. So with a release that feels a bit like letting go of a scarf during a hurricane, humanity descends back upon the alchemist. "Sorry..I...did not realize it was so bad." He murmurs apologetically, frowning as he holds his hand out like he might to a scared dog.

"I didn't mean to..." Remi adds, unsure exactly what he's apologizing for, but sensing the need for it just the same.

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

we live in a world someone else imagined

I am scared, says a voice in the back of Ronin's mind, one that he doesn't really want to admit to having. So he opts for saying nothing - a good choice, given how dry his mouth has suddenly become - and only manages to look properly at his husband when Remi lifts the veil away from himself and becomes the head of curls and green eyes that he knows so well. "It's alright. You didn't know, it's alright." He says, trying and failing at a smile.

It doesn't stop him from shifting to all but collapse against Remi, though, winding his arms around him as if suddenly exhausted. "When you touched me while you were shifted, it was like... I don't know. Everything felt so heavy..." He wrinkles his nose. "I suppose that will teach me for playing a trick on you, mm?"

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

For all their brutal honesty, still things go unsaid between them. But in the moment Remi thinks that's probably for the best given the strangeness of what's happening. Tugging the Huntsman down into the grass, the alchemist is careful to keep clothing between them at least for the time being. "And now?" He wonders gently, green eyes once again kind and caring, if not slightly confused.

"I don't want to ever touch you like that...or make you feel like that." He whispers, wanting very much to kiss the lingering uncertainty off of his husband's face, but refraining for obvious reasons. Even his hands as they twine around the former-Star, wanting to draw him up and over like a blanket, remain firmly on the outside of his clothing.

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

we live in a world someone else imagined

"Now it's just... it just feels like you," Ronin mumbles, happily flopping into the grass with Remi and dismissing his antlers. They briefly plunge back into darkness, but the glade softly lights up with the stars and the moon through the tree branches, along with winking fireflies which hover about them. He drapes over the Lullaby easily enough, though Remi will feel and hear his heart rabbiting in his chest.

Shifting to carefully rest his cheek against his husband's chest, Ronin forces out a long sigh and closes his eyes. "I know. I know it wasn't on purpose, I just... I was not expecting to be chased through the spooky woods at night," he murmurs, absently smoothing out Remi's shirt. "Just touch me, please? As you?"

the dark star

REMI

the lullaby

'If you don't run, you can't be chased." Remi advises with smug predatory insight as Ronin shifts and adjusts himself. The Huntsman will feel Remi's heart against his ear, and though it isn't beating quick as quickly as Ronin's is, the steady and deep pulse of it speaks of something wild just the same.

With fingers that flinch, Remi gently slinks his hand beneath Ronin's shirt. For a moment it's nothing more than that until the alchemist pulls in a deep breath and lets his palm rest against his husband's lower back. Instantly he's awash with relief and love, and as he increases the pressure of his hand, he curls an arm around Ronin's shoulders and presses his lips against the top of Ronin's head. 'You feel so good, for some reason.' He mutters into the flop of the Huntsman's curls.

Kicking off his shoes and socks that he might feel the grass between his toes, Remi lets his gaze drift toward the stars above. "How nice of Ludo to give me a new shift without warning. I'll have to send it a giftbasket as thanks."

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection